ZBrushCentral

"Make Mesh" feature of Array Mesh function

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi all,
I was using the new Array Mesh functionality and noticed that the “Make Mesh” button at the bottom becomes disabled if more than one stage is added to the Array. It does, however, work is only one stage is included in the array. I’m just wondering if I’m doing something wrong or need to do something to enable the Make Mesh button when there is more than one stage.

Of course, this can be worked around by just doing each stage as it’s own mesh, but it would be nice to be able to modify the different stages in a non-linear fashion before committing the array to a static mesh.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

#2

Move the stage slider back to the first stage when you’re ready to “make mesh.”

#3

Thank you very much. That of course works great. It seems that when you click “Make Mesh” on the first stage, only the items produced in that stage become meshes, and that stage is removed from the stack of array stages. You can continue to click Make Mesh to convert the remaining stages to meshes.

Thanks again for your help.

#4

Hmm. That’s not what I’m having to do.

I just keep appending new stages onto the previous, set the new stage to “chain” so it picks up where the previous left off, and then when I’m finished I move the “Transform stage” slider back to 1. It “ghosts” out the higher stages, but Make Mesh then becomes active again, and when I click it, it makes the entire series into mesh (or meshes).

#5

I wasn’t using the “chain” option in this case. But from what you suggested, I tried using it and it seems to alter the functionality of the Make Mesh operation.

From what I can tell, Make Mesh will convert the objects in the initial stage of the array to meshes, and also any further stages that are chained to it. If the second stage is not chained, only the first stage is converted to meshes. The other stages remain instances of that first stage.

Thanks for your replies.

#6

I am really eager to utilize the Array Mesh function more, but I can’t get the “Make Mesh” button to give me a mesh of all the instances. When I have the stages unchained, it’ll only give me the original mesh (with some extra floating polys thrown in?). When I do chain them together, it gives me two of the meshes generated from my second (and final) stage (with extra polys still). Can someone please give me more advice on how to get this to work properly? I just can’t get it to work for me.